Maine Department of Education - Administrative Letter 22: April 1st Resident Enrollment Reporting – Instructions for Completing MEDMS Student Information System

ADMINISTRATIVE LETTER: 22
POLICY CODE: JF

TO: Superintendents of Schools

FROM: Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner

DATE: March 23, 2007

RE: April 1st Resident Enrollment Reporting – Instructions for Completing MEDMS Student Information System

The official April 1, 2007 enrollment data for each school and school administrative unit will be collected through the MEDMS Student Information System. This includes attending counts, subsidy counts, and equivalent instruction counts (home-schooled students taking academic classes paid by public funds) that will be used for the 2008-09 subsidy calculations. Superintendents of schools may review the students that have been enrolled in the MEDMS Student Information System by logging into MEDMS from the MEDMS home page and following the instructions for the MEDMS EPS Report.

Since April 1, 2007 falls on a Sunday, the official April 1st count will be as of April 2, 2007. If a student has moved from your school administrative unit to another school administrative unit prior to April 2, 2007, the exit date should be the last day the students is counted for attendance.

School administrative units must enroll students in the MEDMS Student Information System no later than April 15, 2007, and then review the MEDMS EPS Report. The MEDMS home page is available at: http://www.maine.gov/education/medms/

The MEDMS Student Information System’s EPS Report must be reviewed and certified for each school administrative unit by April 30, 2007. Please review the MEDMS EPS Report and certify by faxing the certification form (included with this letter) to (207) 624-6791. I encourage all school administrative units to review the EPS Report, have the attending school correct any errors in MEDMS, download the corrected EPS Report, and then submit the certification form. If errors are not corrected, this may result in an incorrect student count for school subsidy. If this certification is not received by April 30, 2007 it will be assumed that the information in the April 2, 2007 EPS report is correct. (Note: A school administrative unit is a municipality, school administrative district or a community school district. A school union is not a school administrative unit, so please do not submit a EPS Report certification for a school union – each municipality in a school union must each submit a separate EPS Report certification.)

Instructions for downloading and reviewing the MEDMS EPS Report are available at the following website:
http://www.maine.gov/education/medms/studentinfolist.htm

All corrections to student information must be entered into the MEDMS Student Information System by the school that the student is attending; these changes will be reflected in the EPS Report after the next update to the EPS report occurs. For the period of March 28 through April 30, the EPS Report will update every four hours (These updates are set to occur each day at 12 Midnight, 4 AM, 8 AM, 12 Noon, 4 PM, 8 PM). If the information or changes in information that has been entered in MEDMS are not included in the next EPS Report that you download, please be patient and download the EPS Report data again at a later time or even the next day. Instructions for downloading the EPS Report are on the MEDMS Student Information website.

Since attending schools must make all corrections in MEDMS Student information, please make corrections in a timely manner for any errors identified by the sending school unit for their resident students. In order for the sending school administrative units to certify their EPS Report BY April 30, 2006, the receiving (attending) school administrative unit needs to correct any errors on these students PRIOR to the April 30th due date. If errors are not corrected, this may result in an incorrect student count for school subsidy for these school administrative units.

The following information is available on the MEDMS Student Information website: http://www.maine.gov/education/medms/studentinfolist.htm

Student Data Entry Completion
Data Fields to Complete Student Data
General Definitions Related to Student Enrollment Data
Dropout Reporting Instructions
EPS Report Instructions – Public
EPS Report Instructions – Private
Fiscal Responsibility Guidelines
Foreign Exchange Student Information
Home School Education
State Agency Clients Information
Superintendents Agreement Information

For questions regarding student residency and enrollment, please email GPA.DOE@maine.gov or call Richard Bergeron at (207) 624-6799.

Technical assistance is available from the MEDMS Help Desk via email medms.helpdesk@maine.gov or by telephone at (207) 624-6896.
Information on Reporting Requirements for Publicly Funded Students that Attend Private Schools:
A recent letter to Private School Administrators (see link below) indicates that private schools must report all “publicly funded students” in the MEDMS Student Information System. Accurate reporting by the private schools of publicly funded students in the MEDMS Student Information System is key for accurate public school administrative units’ subsidy counts for these students in their future State subsidies. Therefore, I encourage you to ensure that the private school has all the necessary information on each student in order to ensure accurate reporting in the MEDMS Student Information System.

Public schools that contract with private schools should consider including in the contract a provision that the private school must report the unit’s publicly funded students in the MEDMS Student Information System. Also, I must remind you that contracts with private schools must be approved by the Commissioner pursuant to 20-A MRSA Section 2703, subsection 1, paragraph E.

Note: In order for a public school unit to pay public funds to a private school, a private school must be approved to receive public funds under 20-A MRSA Chapter 117, Subchapter 2. Each school year these schools will be listed on the Department of Education’s Tuition Rates website at:
http://www.maine.gov/education/data/tuitionrates/tuitrate.htm

More information on the requirements for private school approval for the receipt of public funds is available at:
http://www.maine.gov/education/forms/misteam/efm240/efm240menu.htm

Attachments:

Link to letter to Private School Administrators

Link to April 2, 2007 EPS Report Certification Form